


Where Was I, When The Rockets Came To Life

by tookumade



Series: Haikyuu!! MatsuHana Week - 2015 [5]
Category: Haikyuu!!
Genre: Alternate Universe - Future, Alternate Universe - Science Fiction, M/M, One Shot, Original Universe, mild violence
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-08-14
Updated: 2015-08-14
Packaged: 2018-04-14 16:50:51
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,510
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/4572207
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/tookumade/pseuds/tookumade
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>In a city like this, there wasn’t much of a chance that they would meet again, and given Hanamaki’s current career of choice, if they did, then it was more than likely to be because of a cruel joke set up by fate. He was not about to let his heart be broken now. He had more important things to think about…</p><p>(written for Haikyuu!! MatsuHana Week - Day 5 - glasses, piercing)</p>
            </blockquote>





	Where Was I, When The Rockets Came To Life

**Author's Note:**

> 1) Super-late to the party, even after MatsuHana week is over, but I got too emotionally invested to just drop everything aaahahaha  
> 2) This is the oddest thing I've ever written?!  
> 3) I wrote this with the intention of it being a one-shot only, and have no plans to write more from it. Sorry! I hope you'll enjoy it anyway.  
> 4) I'm still not completely sure where I was going with this fic. ¯\\_( TヮT)_/¯

“I got Team Six’s tag!” Hanamaki called out as he stumbled into headquarters, exhausted but triumphant, a little battered but not giving a damn. He held it up, and it caught the room’s light and reflected brightly. There were cheers all around the room.  
  
“ _Nice_ ,” said Iwaizumi with a grin, hobbling over to him with his pair of crutches as their teammates made way for him. “They don't have a chance anymore, they’re too far behind to advance.” He turned to the rest of their team.  
  
“Currently, we’re in equal first place with Team Twelve,” he said in a raised voice, and they hushed and hung on to his every word. “Whoever gets more tags within the next twenty-eight hours will advance to the next round. If we miss this chance, we’ll have to wait another month. If none of the other teams pull ahead of us, it’ll be the same thing for them, but we can’t expect them to just sit around and do nothing. But we can do this! I want you all to stay alert and let me and Hanamaki know as soon as you find another tag-keeper, okay?”  
  
“ _YEEAAHH!_ ” the room cheered at him.  
  
“I’ll put the tag with the others in a bit,” said Hanamaki as their teammates clapped his shoulder and dispersed. “I want the first-aid kit, I’m bleeding a little.”  
  
“Was it bad?” Iwaizumi followed him into the makeshift infirmary area where Hanamaki pulled the first-aid kit from the cupboard next to the sink, and they both sat down at a small table. Hanamaki detached a complicated-looking earpiece from his ear and placed it beside the first-aid kit, and readjusted the large square black stud in his piercing.  
  
“Team Six’s player?” he said, opening the first-aid kit. “He was fast, but not that strong. I think Team Six were getting desperate; he looked too scared to be a reliable tag-keeper. I kind of felt bad for him but… well, we’re not here to build friendly team rivalry.”  
  
“How badly did you get him?”  
  
“Not too badly,” said Hanamaki, wincing at he dabbed at a small cut near his elbow. “I knocked him to the ground and took his tag, that’s all.”  
  
Iwaizumi nodded. “Nothing unnecessary; that’s all we need. Are you okay to move soon? You need to be ready for the next tag.”  
  
“Yeah, just give me a moment to– _owww_ , this _stiiings_ …”  
  
“It could be worse,” said Iwaizumi, gesturing to his heavily bandaged ankle, and then shaking one of his crutches impatiently. “Ah, _shit_ , I’m so _restless_. I want this stupid ankle to _heal_ already.”  
  
“Hey, give me my chance to shine,” said Hanamaki with a grin and another wince. “I can’t let you hog all the glory.”  
  
“We’re _so close_ to advancing, and I’m stuck indoors and leaving all the work to you and doing _nothing_ –”  
  
“You’re leading the whole _group_ , dumbass,” said Hanamaki exasperatedly. “Take a break. We’ll advance, don’t worry. We can do this.”  
  
“Yeah.” Iwaizumi sighed and ran his hands down his face. “Yeah, we can do this. Okay.”  
  
  
  
—  
  
  
  
A few hours later, it was midnight, and Hanamaki was outside again. Midnight until five in the morning was the quiet period when no teams were allowed to chase for tags, under penalty of complete disqualification. It was really the only time to breathe, and it was Hanamaki’s favourite time of day; walking freely like this, he felt like an ordinary civilian. He was in a good mood, tonight.  
  
He arrived at his favourite spot—a meeting place of sorts which overlooked a decent part of the city. Few people were around tonight, but a handful of food shops were still open. There was the buzz of conversation, a little louder to Hanamaki thanks to his ear-piercing and its tiny built-in speaker that allowed him to hear his surroundings much more clearly. Looking downwards over the railing, the city’s lights sprawled for miles like a spectacular glittering web. Hanamaki smiled fondly; he had seen this view a hundred times but would never get tired of it. He took a deep breath and stretched his arms over his head with a slight groan, feeling the cool breeze sweep around him comfortably. It was a beautiful night.  
  
He heard a tinkering of light metal falling, followed by a soft, “Shit, _shit_.”  
  
Hanamaki turned to see a young man about his age, tall as Hanamaki was, with wavy hair, thick eyebrows, and broad shoulders, standing a short distance away and fumbling with his wallet with a snack of some sort smushed into the crook of his arm. Squinting slightly, Hanamaki could see two money notes crushed under his foot to keep from flying away, and a handful of coins scattered on the floor in front of him. He was clearly struggling, and with nobody else sparing him a glance, Hanamaki found himself both taking pity on him and also taking into account that someone that clumsy probably wasn’t another tag-keeper, and therefore safe company. While all tag-related activities were off-limits at this time of night, it didn’t hurt to be too careful. Hanamaki twisted at his ear-piercing a little, turning down the volume, before approaching the stranger.  
  
“Hey, let me help,” he said, ducking to scoop up the coins, and holding them out to him. The young man sighed gratefully and took them back, before plucking the notes from the ground.  
  
“Thank you,” he said, voice soft and deep. “Sorry about that, I’m not usually that bad…”  
  
“No worries, I don’t judge by first impressions.” There was a pause and the young man looked slightly surprised. Hanamaki grinned at him. “It’s fine.”  
  
The young man stuffed his money back into his wallet hastily. It was hard to tell given the night, but against the lights of the surrounding shops, he may have been blushing out of embarrassment. Hanamaki took a small step back and waited patiently, just in case he dropped anything else, when he noticed that the young man was sporting a pair of heavy black-framed glasses that had all sorts of tiny knobs and buttons along the rims and arms.  
  
He caught Hanamaki staring, and quickly looked away again.  
  
“It’s, uh… I messed up the lens just before and forgot to readjust them, so it threw my perception off a little.” The young man tapped at his glasses with a sheepish look on his face.  
  
“You… messed up the lens?” Hanamaki repeated blankly.  
  
“Yeah, it’s…” Squishing his snack—a bread roll— back into the crook of his elbow, he took his glasses off and twisted at one of the minuscule knobs and pressed a button before holding them out to Hanamaki and motioning for him to give them a try. Hanamaki grinned a little and accepted them, mystified.  
  
“You don’t even know what my prescription…” He trailed off and his jaw fell open a little as he looked through the lenses, out into the beautiful, vast city.  
  
It was like looking through a telescope but much more comfortably and with a wider scope. The sparkling view of the city was magnified and he could see the brightly-lit streets clearer and in much more detail than if had just looked with the naked eye—parked cars, people walking, shopfronts of places he frequented, familiar places, areas he had never glanced twice at. Looking up a little into the distance meant that he could see the lit-up skyscrapers from the next city, instead of just a cluster of dim lights on the horizon. Everything looked so tantalisingly close…  
  
A little overwhelmed, he took the glasses off.  
  
“Holy shit,” he said breathlessly, looking up at Man With The Glasses in awe. “What the hell?”  
  
“Complicated tech I can only half-understand,” said Man With The Glasses with a smile. “Something-something optics, and state-of-the-art eye-scans so they can adjust according to the user? I don’t know the details, I only wear them.”  
  
“I’ve lived here for _years_ and I’ve never seen the city like that before,” said Hanamaki. “I thought just looking at it like I had been doing before was enough, but… that was really amazing.”  
  
“It’s a hell of a city.”  
  
“It is.”  
  
They exchanged another grin and quickly looked away again. Hanamaki felt a funny little swoop in his stomach, which was rather ridiculous because he had met this guy for all of… what, ten minutes? Well… a little harmless flirting could be okay; it was about time he let himself unwind a bit, anyway.  
  
Man With The Glasses held out his hand and took his glasses back from Hanamaki, turned another tiny knob and pressed another two buttons, and then handed them to him again, and pointed at the sky. “It’s a bit cloudy tonight,” he said somewhat shyly, “but if you look at the moon with the glasses now, you can still see–”  
  
“Craters,” Hanamaki breathed as he put the glasses back on and looked upwards. “I can see Copernicus. Holy shit, that’s _incredible_.”  
  
“When the sky is a bit clearer, you can see the ice caps of Mars too, if you put the glasses to the highest setting.”  
  
“I have _got_ to get me one of these.”  
  
Man With The Glasses laughed softly. “Sorry, these are two-of-a-kind and I own both of them.”  
  
“Ah, damn!” Hanamaki took them off carefully and flashed him a grin. “I’ll give them back to you then; I’d hate myself if I broke them. Thanks for trusting me with them, by the way. I mean, it’s weird of you, but thanks.”  
  
“Well,” said Man With The Glasses with a shrug, “you gave back all my money when I dropped it, instead of running off with it, so… I figured you couldn’t be that bad.”  
  
“Seriously? Your standards are _way_ too low.”  
  
“I can’t help it. Honestly, it wouldn’t be much of a stretch to say that you might actually be the kindest person I’ve met?” Man With The Glasses fiddled with the settings for a brief moment before putting them back on his face. “Especially in a place like this.”  
  
“Wow, you’ve met some _really_ shitty people, then,” said Hanamaki with a little laugh, not knowing whether or not he was joking. He looked back out into the city, to a view he was much more familiar with, and said with a touch of nostalgia in his voice, “It used to be so much better.”  
  
“A long time ago,” Man With The Glasses agreed quietly. “Shit! Speaking of time…” He held up the forgotten bread roll snack in his hand, and Hanamaki found himself huffing another laugh.  
  
“Got somewhere to be? Go ahead,” he said.  
  
“Sorry. Um… thanks again for your help.”  
  
“It was a small thing, don’t mention it,” said Hanamaki, shoving his hands in his pockets and nodding at him. “Thanks for the… literal eye-opener?”  
  
Man With The Glasses nodded back, and then his smile turned shy again. “What’s your name?” he asked.  
  
“Hanamaki.”  
  
“Matsukawa. Don’t be a stranger.”  
  
“I won’t if you won’t.”  
  
And with one last grin at each other—one last swoop in Hanamaki’s stomach—they parted ways.  
  
  
  
—  
  
  
  
It was early morning when Hanamaki’s alarm woke him up from his dreams of soaring above brightly-lit nondescript cities, groaning and mumbling complaints into his pillow, and he got ready for the day. There hadn’t been any news from any of his teammates about finding a new tag for him to chase, so he used this precious lull to do a bit of light training to pass the time. He was growing increasingly restless as the hours crawled by; surely _something_ would come up soon… they were running out of time, but they were so close to advancing…  
  
He found himself occasionally wondering where the stranger from last night was now; whether he was dropping his money again, looking at faraway sights with those incredible lenses of his, whether he was giving someone else that warm smile–  
  
He slapped himself on the cheeks sharply. Nope, he wasn’t going to run with that train of thought; it had been just harmless flirting between two strangers and nothing more. In a city like this, there wasn’t much of a chance that they would meet again, and given Hanamaki’s current career of choice, if they did, then it was more than likely to be because of a cruel joke set up by fate. He was not about to let his heart be broken now. He had more important things to think about…  
  
Like Iwaizumi’s urgent page from the main room at nearly eleven o’clock, which could only mean one thing. Hanamaki dashed over and threw the doors open, startling the rest of his teammates in the room. He saw Iwaizumi jump up unsteadily and seize his crutches.  
  
“Hanamaki–”  
  
“Did you find–”  
  
“Yes! We need you to get ready right now,” said Iwaizumi, hobbling towards him. “Team Twelve apparently has a new player, registered just two hours ago. We’ve already got a signal on them, so we need you to get their tag. We only need one more and we’ll be able to advance into the next round.”  
  
“Location?” asked Hanamaki, already fastening his earpiece into place around his piercing.  
  
“At the moment, he’s north-east of the city, where the police station used to be.”  
  
“Got it.”  
  
“Be careful, okay? If you get your tag stolen, you’ll have to leave the city, and I can’t do this without you, you hear me?”  
  
“Don’t worry, you’re not getting rid of me that easily.” Hanamaki turned and headed back out the door, but not before throwing one more reassuring grin over his shoulder. “I’ll be off, then.”  
  
“Take care.”  
  
“I’ll make you proud.”  
  
  
  
—  
  
  
  
Hanamaki made it to the old police station’s crumbling buildings without any incident, moving as quickly as he could whilst keeping a low profile. His even more enhanced earpiece hadn’t picked up any unusual noises on the way; nothing to put him on alert. So far so good–  
  
Ah, no, he could hear someone hurrying in his direction from the north, nearly half a mile away; his own signal must have been intercepted, which was unwelcome, but not completely unexpected. The new player’s steps were quick but heavy, and it was hard to discern what the person was like for the moment, but Hanamaki had been playing this game for far too long to start being scared.  
  
Hanamaki ducked into a small alleyway, listening to the footsteps following him at a shorter and shorter distance. He quickly found his footing with the help of a window sill, grabbed the bit of over-hanging roof with its tiles cool against his fingers, and hoisted himself up onto the second level’s balcony, where he ducked completely out of sight. He closed his eyes and cupped a hand around his earpiece and listened carefully as Team Twelve’s player drew closer… and closer… and closer… approaching the place where Hanamaki was hiding…  
  
With his adrenaline rush powering him through and commanding him to _get the tag, get the tag, get the tag,_ Hanamaki flung himself over the balcony, feet first, towards the player. The element of surprise had rarely failed him in the past, but as he caught the briefest of glances at them—man, tall, dark hair—his brain began screaming new messages at him; _get the tag, get the tag, something is wrong, get the tag, something is wrong, something is wrong–_  
  
His target jumped out the way just in time and Hanamaki hit the ground. He raised his arms and blocked a well-aimed low roundhouse kick from the player, grabbed onto his ankle, and with a sharp twist of his whole body, pulled him forward and off-balance, and heard him fall with a satisfying thud against the stone tiled ground. Another kick against his back, weak as it was, told him that the fight was far from over, though; Hanamaki rolled away and jumped onto his feet, ready to face his opponent properly and–  
  
It was the Man With The Glasses that he had met last night— _Matsukawa_.  
  
He looked exactly the same as Hanamaki remembered him, only now, his glasses were in the form of something similar to sports goggles, with the same knobs and buttons Hanamaki saw around the rims and strap around his head. It seemed so obvious now—an ordinary civilian could have use for complicated glasses like Matsukawa’s, but not to this extent. Matsukawa? Matsukawa would use them for tag-chasing, to give him more detailed views of his surroundings at a greater distance. Why hadn’t Hanamaki picked that out? Why had he let his guard down so much around him, and made such a stupid assumption that he looked too _harmless_ to be a tag-keeper?  
  
Hanamaki brain was caught somewhere between screaming _move, MOVE!_ and demanding answers from nobody in particular. What was he doing here? That clumsy guy with the warm smile who didn’t seem like he could hurt a fly, who could see the moon and Mars clearly, who let Hanamaki look at the dangerous but beautiful city through his eyes…  
  
He looked as shocked as Hanamaki did. Hanamaki briefly wondered what Matsukawa thought of him.  
  
And his moment of hesitation costed him. Before Hanamaki could fully register what was going on, Matsukawa had closed their gap in a step and aimed a punch towards Hanamaki’s face, which he parried, before he felt Matsukawa elbow him hard in the stomach and then sweep his feet from underneath him, and suddenly, Hanamaki found himself floored and lying on his back and staring up at the clear sky, completely winded. A heaviness against his chest and neck forced him to sharply turn his attention back to whatever was going on closer to the ground—Matsukawa had his knee pressed against his throat, with the rest of his weight holding him down. One hand was clenched around Hanamaki’s tag…  
  
He would take it. He would take the tag, and Hanamaki would be disqualified from the game and exiled from the city as per game rules, and his team would have to wait another long month before they could hope to advance _again_ , and they would have to find a new replacement, which was getting harder and harder to do, the others just weren’t up to scratch yet, and Iwaizumi already had so much on his plate and they had made a promise to each other that they would advance so Iwaizumi could finally search for his best friend and–  
  
“Fuck.”  
  
Matsukawa’s swearing made Hanamaki’s eyes flicker towards his face.  
  
“ _Fuck_ ,” he said again with much more bite, eyes lit up with something like fury and despair crushed together. “Why the _fuck_ is it you?”  
  
Hanamaki tried to speak—tried to say anything but the words weren’t forming, and it wasn’t because Man With The Glasses— _Matsukawa_ —had his fucking knee to his neck. As he scrabbled at it weakly, desperately, he thought about the beautiful brightly-lit city at night and Copernicus and Mars’ ice caps and coins dropping to the ground and that warm smile, and he wanted to ask him the same thing; _why the fuck is it you?_  
  
The weight on his chest eased suddenly. Hanamaki brain fought furiously to catch up and he realised that Matsukawa had run off and was nowhere in sight, and he could breathe again. He gasped for air, sharp and ragged, and it _hurt_ to breathe, it hurt to move. His fingers clutched at his tag, still there, still cold and metallic under his warm fingers, and he gripped it tightly until the edges dug into his skin. Matsukawa had let him keep the tag. He had set his own team’s progress back… so that Hanamaki wouldn’t have to leave the city according to game rules?

He closed his eyes, pressing his cheek against the cool stone tiles and willing his breathing to calm a little as his heart and mind fought furiously within him. Two short, soft beeps in his earpiece told him that someone from headquarters was trying to contact him, and with a heavy heart, he answered the call.

“Hanamaki,” came Iwaizumi’s voice urgently, “are you okay? The other guy’s signal is headed back west.”  
  
Hanamaki ran his fingers through his hair and took a deep, shaky breath. “I’m sorry, Iwaizu–”  
  
“That’s not what I asked—I asked if you’re okay.”  
  
“I couldn’t get the–”  
  
“ _Hanamaki_.”  
  
“I’m fine,” said Hanamaki. “I’m fine. But I couldn’t get the tag. He got away. Our tag’s still with me.”  
  
“Okay,” said Iwaizumi, relief in his voice. “It’s fine. I’m glad you’re okay. Come back, and we’ll rethink our strategy.”  
  
“I can still get another tag–”  
  
“Hanamaki–”  
  
“You need to find Oikawa–”  
  
“ _Hanamaki_.” Iwaizumi’s voice was much firmer, now. “Don’t think about that now. Come back to headquarters. Tell us what you can about Team Twelve’s player, but… just come back, okay?”  
  
Hanamaki pressed his palms over his eyes for a moment. Matsukawa’s face flashed in his mind, and he felt a tightness in his chest.  
  
“Yeah,” he said softly. “I’m coming back now.”  
  
—————


End file.
